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Thursday, August 30, 2012

I must say that it is about time that our so-called press is doing their job. They’ve been letting Mitt and the Republican Party slid on most of their bullshit since the Primaries, and it has been pretty discusting to watch.

At least now, though, the press ( except for Fox ) is beginning to fact-check both Ryan and Romey’s statements.

the A.P.:FACT CHECK: Convention speakers stray from reality

Laying out the first plans for his party's presidential ticket, GOP vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan took some factual shortcuts Wednesday night when he attacked President Barack Obama's policies on Medicare, the economic stimulus and the budget deficit.

This doesn’t happen every day, but good for the Los Angeles Times for calling out the ubiquitous falsehood about Obama supposedly waiving welfare reform’s work requirement right in its headline:

Rick Santorum repeats inaccurate welfare attack on Obama

As Kevin Drum says: “it’s about time reporters and copy editors started putting this stuff front and center.” And, indeed, the LA Times does this, in its headline and with this highly placed sentence: “In fact, Obama did not waive the work requirement.”

It has not escaped attention that Mitt Romney has built his entire campaign on, well, lies.

Anybody tuning in to the Republican National Convention on Tuesday night heard and saw “you didn’t build that” roughly fourteen gajillion times. The RNC’s stated theme of Day One was “We Built That.” Country singer Lane Turner unveiled his new protest song, “I Build That.” New conservative star Mia Love: "This is the America we know, because we built it!" Ann Romney proclaimed that her husband "was not handed success. He built it!" On television, Romney’s main campaign theme is that President Obama has ended the work requirement in the 1996 welfare law and is instead sending out checks. In his speeches, and during the convention, the message is that President Obama has lectured small business owners that they didn’t build their own business. Swing-state denizens just tuning in to the campaign probably think the election is primarily a referendum on welfare reform.

I want to tell you they marched out of the hall Tuesday night on fire for their side. But I was there and they did not. They walked out like people who weren’t quite sure what to think or how to feel but were hoping for the best.”

At any rate, Fournier has confirmed from GOP strategists that angering blue collar whites is the goal of this strategy. We also know that the GOP has a history of using race-based messaging to appeal to this constituency. And we know Romney probably can’t win unless he pushes his white vote totals to record levels — hence the pollster’s claim that these attacks could make a difference on the margins.

What makes this all noteworthy is who Fournier is. He’s well respected in Washington journalism, having worked as the Associated Press’s Washington correspondent — where he was called on first in many presidential press conferences — before becoming editor in chief of the National Journal Group. Having him come out and explicitly charge the Romney campaign with race-baiting will make this a safer topic among some of the top-shelf commentator and journalist types who might otherwise have shied away from it.